Benidorm local warns Spanish hotspot may not be 'as good as it seems'

She said protests across Spain 'did not affect tourism at all'

A local in Benidorm has warned that the holiday hotspot may not be 'as good as it seems'. Ana is known for her YouTube channel 'Benidorm by Ana'.

She has more than 17,000 subscribers and regularly shares news, weather updates and insights from the popular Spanish hotspot. In a recent video, she said that hotels in Benidorm had been 90 per cent full during September.

'No one expected' the hotels to be so full given that it is now the 'off-season', she said. Ana said: "The places are still really busy, the bars, restaurants, cafeterias."

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She went on to discuss news headlines in recent weeks, which have been talking of a potential 'collapse' to come in tourism in Spain. Looking at one article in particular, Ana highlighted the phrase "die of success", Mirror reports.

She said: "This is a typical Spanish phrase, 'die of success', that [something's] so, so, so successful that it's not even good any longer. This might be the case. Only in August, around 11 million people arrived in Spain, and up until now, up until October month, there has been around 64million tourists here in our country."

Ana suggested the Spanish model of tourism 'prioritises quantity over quality in some places'. She said: " Spain was always tracking the number of how many tourists arrive, and a lot of places had very cheap holidays, like drinking stag/hen party holidays, people were coming in crowds but as a result it's not as good as it seemed at first.

"Because spending is not as high and having so many people makes extra work and effort for cleaning services, for staff of the tourism industry in general. So it's not as good as it seemed." Ana also discussed anti-tourism protests which have recently taken place across several Spanish cities and resorts.

Locals have been angry about rent increases due to properties being bought up for the tourism sector. She said the demonstrations have been 'slowing down', which is understandable given that Spanish tourism has entered a 'quieter season'.

She added: "All I'm going to say is that these protests did not affect tourism at all, because we're hitting record numbers!"